Workflow tools should be embraced, but customer experience must remain top of mind

The end of passwords is coming and that may serve as one step towards enhancing efficiencies and improving customer experience, Francis Dion, founder and CEO of Xpertdoc Technologies Inc., suggested during his presentation at the P&C Insurance Technology Conference in downtown Toronto Tuesday.

“I think that the way we are dealing with passwords today is just silly,” Dion told attendees at his session, The Virtual Office: Keeping it Real. “This is just something that has to be fixed that will be fixed,” he predicted, adding that “one password is better than having 20, but I think having no password is even better.”

Dion also pointed to smart forms as an advancement that could meet the twin goals of improving efficiency and service. Citing measures being taken by one case company, he said the company was delivering to a “very fine grain, past-related analytics.”

Much like Google analytics and how that information can show how users are navigating through a company’s website – important detail that can help with optimizing the website – the case company was using analytics to improve its forms. It was not just about who fills out which forms and who submits it, but where and when the forms were being amended, Dion relayed.

Seeing when, and even more relevant where, forms are amended can be telling. “What questions do they ask of the user who fills out that form that triggers them to ponder, ‘Hmm. I don’t have that information. I don’t understand that question. That is too complicated. I need to think about that and come back to it later,” Dion told attendees.

Knowing precisely where the individual was in the process when he amended a form allows the carrier to focus their forms improvement initiatives “on those forms, those questions or those portions of the forms that are most problematic and are slowing down the process of moving that business forward,” he said.

“Smart forms are not only connecting the dots, they’re also enabling the transaction,” Dion suggested. “If I don’t understand the question, can the form tell me what are my options, where I should go for help, can I have a form that only asks me the questions that are relevant for me, based on my history of interacting with that carrier and based on the answers I’ve provided them.”

Dion suggested that “getting that last mile, getting that full cycle process enabled… is really where the full cycle of the workflow provides the most value both to the carriers, the producers, and the customers themselves.”

Companies should always be asking themselves, “How can we go all the way through? How can we close the loop and go to that last mile to realize the full potential of those technological and social advancements?”

All that said, though, Dion emphasized that it is essential companies remember “it’s not about digital power; it’s not just about technology. It’s about people.”

In that vein, companies must ensure they take that into account and consider where customers are “in their arc with technology adoption, where they want to be, and where are they when they’re thinking about you and your brand?”

Beyond the end of passwords, Dion’s other predictions included the following:

• the end of driving – “The reason that I think it’s going to be real is because I want it, and others like me want it as well.”
• the end of privacy – As an example, Dion pointed to a new smart television that is voice-activated. “The more you talk to it, the more it learns about you and what you want,” he said. That information is then sent over the Internet to a third party who analyzes the details. “The end of privacy also ties back to the end of passwords. What the end of passwords is biometrics.”
• the end of everything – He explained that “technological singularity is when computers are going to be smarter than humans and there will be a time when a computer will figure out that there is a higher purpose in its life than serving us.”